1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved system for managing agent assignments in a call center environment in which agents are transferred from one agent activity to another based upon a performance parameter and, more particularly, to an improved system that anticipates short term imbalances between a need for agents to meet performance parameters and agent assignments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, commercially available systems, which automatically connect incoming calls to an agent, offer a range of functional capabilities. Many of these Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) systems are capable of simultaneously running multiple tasks with some agents logged on to one task and other agents logged on to another task. Here it should be noted, the current trend in call center systems is to have full multi-media capabilities, which includes incoming and outgoing telephony calls, web chats, e-mails and other advanced Internet contacts, so that the blending function transfers agents among these activities.
For example, there are prior art systems that blend inbound automatic call distribution agents and automatic outbound calling agents in order to improve staffing efficiency. Inbound call distribution typically has peaks and valleys in its operation since the demand is generated by outside callers. By linking inbound and outbound call functions, outbound agents can be switched to inbound duty during peak inbound demand periods and switched back to outbound duty during slack periods in inbound demand, thus improving overall staffing efficiency.
In typical prior art systems, an inbound performance parameter is monitored based upon statistics tracked by the inbound call distributor; for example, number of calls in the inbound queue or average time to answer an inbound call. Target values and upper and lower thresholds are established for the performance parameter; for example a five second target to respond to incoming calls with an upper threshold of seven seconds and a lower threshold of three seconds. The assumption of the thresholds is: if upper threshold is exceeded the performance is unacceptable, and more inbound agents are needed; if the lower threshold is exceeded, the inbound function is considered to be overstaffed and overall efficiency would be improved by transferring inbound agents to outbound operations.
In the prior art, agents are typically transferred, as they become available, when the upper or lower threshold values ale exceeded. Agents continue to be transferred until the performance parameter is between the upper and lower threshold limits, when the transfer stops. U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,093, assigned to the assignee of this application and incorporated herein by reference, discloses the concept of providing hysteresis to provide added stabilization to agent transfer.
More generally, systems can monitor a call center's performance parameters, such as service times, in-queue times, call volumes, call abandonment rates, benefits derived from having different agents handle calls requiring different skills, proportions of work (e.g., time or calls handled) spent by agents on handling calls requiring different skills, etc., and automatically adjusts agents' call-handling assignments, for example, by changing the skills to which an agent is assigned (logged into) or by changing the relative priorities (levels of expertise) of the agent's skills, in order to optimize a predefined objective or objectives. The objective is a selected performance characteristic of the call center, such as the total benefit to the call center of individual ones of the agents handling calls requiring individual agent skills.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,780 discloses a work force management system for predicting agent requirements in such systems. This system uses historic average load data at specific times to forecast agent requirements at a comparable future times; for example the average load on Tuesday between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. is used to predict the load on the following Tuesday between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. These initial forecasts, which are used to calculate agent requirements at some comparable future time, are not based on the system experience at that future time. However, these initial forecasts are compared with actual data and the initial forecasts can be modified by means of a weighting factor based on the difference between the initial forecast and data accumulated from the system in operation at the future time for which the initial forecast was made. Here it should be noted, the weighting factor is based on the difference between the initially forecast values and the experience values.